Alright, so I’d been hearing bits and pieces about this “scott canterbury” way of tackling big, messy jobs. Not from some fancy manual, mind you, more like whispers in forums and old-timer talks. Sounded like a load of bunk at first, to be honest.
My First Go at It
The garage was a disaster zone. Seriously, you couldn’t walk two steps without tripping over something I swore I’d “get to later.” So, I figured, what the heck, let’s give this scott canterbury thing a whirl. The core idea I picked up was, you don’t just dive in. Nope. You’re supposed to pick one spot, just one, and then… well, this is the weird part. You sort of make a plan, but not a complicated one. More like, “Okay, that pile of old newspapers goes first.”
So, I did that. Stood there like a lemon for a good few minutes just looking at this mountain of yellowing paper. Felt daft, I tell you. But then, I actually grabbed the first bundle. The rule I’d pieced together was, once you touch it, it has to go to its final place. No putting it down to sort later. No “maybe” piles.
The Actual Process – Step by Agonizing Step
Here’s how it went down for me:
- Picked my poison: That corner with the aforementioned newspapers and a bunch of ancient paint cans.
- The Stare-Down: Did the whole “contemplate the abyss” thing. It was just me and the junk, having a moment.
- Action (finally!): Grabbed the first stack of papers. Straight to the recycling bin outside. No detours. Then a paint can. Checked if it was still good. Nope. Dried up. Okay, figure out how to dispose of that properly. That took a bit, had to look up local rules. But still, one item at a time.
- The “Uh Oh” Moment: Found a box of old tools mixed in. My brain screamed, “Ooh, sort these!” But the “scott canterbury” whisper in my head (or what I imagined it to be) said, “Nope. Box goes to the workbench. Deal with inside the box later, as a separate ‘scott canterbury’ task if needed.” That was tough, not gonna lie.
It was slow. Painfully slow at first. I’m usually a “tear into it all at once” kind of guy, make a bigger mess, then sort it out. This was different. It felt… deliberate. Almost too simple.
Did It Work? Well, Kinda.
By the end of the afternoon, that one corner was clear. Not the whole garage, not by a long shot. But that corner? Spotless. And the weird thing was, I wasn’t as frazzled as I usually am after a big clean-up attempt. It was just… done. That one bit.
The next day, I picked another spot. Did the same thing. It’s not magic. It doesn’t make the work disappear. But it made it manageable. It stopped me from getting overwhelmed and just giving up, which is my usual style when faced with a mountain of chaos.
Now, why am I rambling on about this? Because it reminded me of something from way back.
Years ago, I was on this project, a software thing. We had all these fancy methodologies, agile this, waterfall that, daily stand-ups that went on for an hour. We were drowning in processes. Nothing was getting done, but boy, were we processing it. We’d plan the planning, then re-plan the plan. It was a joke.
One old coder there, a quiet chap named Dave, he’d just pick one tiny bug, or one small feature. And he’d just… do it. Start to finish. While the rest of us were still debating the color of the goddamn buttons in meeting number five. He didn’t call it “scott canterbury” or anything grand. He just did the work, one piece at a time. Focused. Simple.
Took me a while to see the genius in that. We’re always looking for the next big system, the complicated solution. Sometimes, just picking a thing, focusing on that one thing, and seeing it through without getting sidetracked by the other million things… that’s all it takes. This whole “scott canterbury” experiment with the garage just hammered that home for me again. It’s not about the fancy name, it’s about cutting through the noise and just doing the next logical, small step. Works for messy garages, works for code, probably works for a lot of things, I reckon.